Indigenous Amazon forests absorb noxious fumes and prevent diseases from wildfires, study suggests
A new study published in Nature estimates that forests in Indigenous lands in Brazil’s Amazon have the potential to absorb over 7,000 tons of noxious fumes from forest fires every year, preventing about 15 million cases of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases annually, which would otherwise cost $2 billion to Brazil’s public health system.
The effect on the health of populations adds to the environmental impacts of fires in the Amazon forest, which are mainly caused by deforestation and contribute to increased emissions.
What was not yet known was the level of those damages, the costs and the ability of the Amazon forests in Indigenous lands to absorb the pollutants, said the study’s authors.
A Homer scientist is bringing changes in Arctic permafrost into high-resolution
With permafrost thaw in the Arctic rapidly outpacing previous projections, researchers are racing to understand the impacts of an increasingly unstable future.
After growing up in Sweden, Anna Liljedahl moved to Alaska to study hydrology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She now lives in Homer, where she conducts research as an associate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, focusing on how climate change is impacting water in Arctic ecosystems.
Read more on Alaska Public Media.
IPCC report will likely shake up U.N. climate talks
Scientists say countries need to cut emissions far deeper to prevent catastrophic warming. That fact will hang over delegates when they meet later this year at the annual U.N. climate talks
When global leaders meet later this year to negotiate climate action, the urgency to cut planet-warming emissions will be starker than ever before.
The world now needs to cut emissions by 60 percent by 2035 — compared with 2019 levels — to avoid increasingly severe heat, flooding, drought and extreme weather that will make parts of the world unlivable. That’s a key conclusion of the latest assessment from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is made up of the world’s leading climate scientists.
Continue reading on Scientific American.
Representatives from Acre participate in an event on the degradation of the Amazon Forest (Portuguese)
Representing Acre by the Company for the Development of Environmental Services of Acre (CDSA), president José Luiz Gondim and the company’s project director, Rosangela Benjamim, participated in the event “Degradation of the Amazon forests: a dialogue between science and society in search of solutions”, held this week at the research campus of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, in Belém (PA).
Continue reading on Notícias do Acre.
Japan, EU & UK biomass emissions standards fall short and are full of loopholes, critics say
Starting this April, Japan will implement a new life cycle greenhouse gas emission standard for biomass power plants supported by its feed-in tariff subsidy for renewable energy. Designed to ensure that forest biomass usage actually reduces carbon emissions compared with fossil fuels, Japan’s new standard is similar to those already implemented by fellow forest biomass users like the United Kingdom and European Union.
The Biden administration has called for protecting mature US forests to slow climate change, but it’s still allowing them to be logged
Forests are critically important for slowing climate change. They remove huge quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere – 30% of all fossil fuel emissions annually – and store carbon in trees and soils. Old and mature forests are especially important: They handle droughts, storms and wildfires better than young trees, and they store more carbon.
In a 2022 executive order, President Joe Biden called for conserving mature and old-growth forests on federal lands. Recently Biden protected nearly half of the Tongass National Forest in Alaska from road-building and logging.
Read more on The Conversation.
Vineyard carbon study could aid local climate fight
A new effort to understand how land management across the Vineyard can help fight climate change is hoped to serve as a model for other communities looking for ways to battle global warming.
The Woodwell Climate Research Center in Woods Hole has embarked on a study with the Martha’s Vineyard Commission and Sheriff’s Meadow to figure out how much carbon the Island’s natural landscape can hold. In doing so, the groups hope to uncover opportunities to store more carbon through nature and prevent it from being released into the atmosphere — a strategy that could be translated to mainland towns looking to do their bit.
Read more on The Vineyard Gazette.
Understanding the link between climate change and colder storms is like riding a bike
When most people think about the jet stream, if they think about it at all, it’s usually in the context of the high-altitude, fast moving wind currents of the northern hemisphere that enable speedy west-to-east long-haul flights. But the polar jet stream also plays a major role in our daily lives: the weaker it gets, the wackier our weather is, from the Texan deep freeze of 2021 to the snow bombs that have pummelled the West Coast over the past two weeks, and the winter storms now heading for the East Coast and Europe. It’s not just cold weather—an unstable jet stream can also lead to severe heat waves, droughts, or excessive amounts of rain. And the polar jet stream appears to be weakening, according to scientists, as a result of Arctic warming caused by climate change.